Story Lab: Week 12

 Advice to Writers

My favorite piece of advice that I read through the list was that of Kevin Barry titled "Literary Talent Isn't Rare." In his post, he talks about how nearly everyone is able to write creative stories with good characters and descriptions, but what people lack is the discipline to do so. I truly do agree with what he said and it gave me a new sense of motivation to write stories. My whole life I have thought of myself as the least creative person when it came to writing. I would avoid every personal narrative class I could, solely because I was not good at coming up with ideas to write about, especially if they were fictional. After taking this course and now reading this quote by Kevin Barry, it has solidified in my mind that anyone is capable of being a great writer, not only that, anyone is capable of being great at ANYTHING as long as they practice discipline. I think that discipline and hard work can get you anywhere you want to be, but often times people's emotions get in their way and distract them from making disciplined decisions. 

Kevin Barry - Author 

Story Lab: Ted Talk Videos

 Ted Talk by OU Professor Jennifer Barnes - 

I thought that this Ted Talk was extremely cool because I had Jennifer Barnes as my Lifespan Development professor last spring. She was an amazing professor and a better person. In her Ted talk she focuses on the idea of fictional characters and what effects they can have on us as people. She highlights para-social relationships and how we as humans feel about celebrities/fictional characters even though they are unaware of our existence. We feel as if we know that person and everything about their lives even though often times they are fictional characters. She says that this relationship can often times mean more to people than casual relationships that we have with real people. I can definitely agree with what she says because I myself have dealt with para-social relationships. I truly realized this when my favorite person in the world other than my family, Kobe Bryant, passed away. I was struck with immense grief and pain even though he did not know of my existence nor had I ever met him. I was crying my eyes out for weeks and still think about him nearly every day. This is the power of para-social relationships, and Professor Barnes that sometimes these relationships can transform us into more empathetical people. 

Ted Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 

This was an amazing Ted talk that focused on the issues that come with telling a single story. Chimamanda talks about the struggles that she has dealt with when coming to America and the stereotypes that she was faced with by her American colleagues, simply because they had only heard negative stories about her home nation of Nigeria. She emphasizes the need to tell multiple stories, telling the good with the bad, rather than just telling the bad. The image that the media portrays about a certain place often times is so one sided that it brainwashes the viewer into believing anything other than what they are told. The issues with telling only one story can lead to stereotypes. She says, "A single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with sterotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete." A single story can only tell so much of the entire story, and whoever is hearing the story is not being told the bigger picture. This is by far one of the best Ted talks I have ever heard, and it really opened my eyes about stereotypes and especially the media. 

What is a stereotype?

Youtube Videos 

Week 4 Lab

Story Book Research 

Festivals and Holidays:

Holi - 

• festival of colors
• celebrates good over evil
• originated in India, but due to people moving, has spread across the world
• the festival lasts a night and a day, and starts on the night of a full moon and continues into the following day
• The night Holi stars, people gather around a bonfire and perform religious rituals that are meant to cleanse the body of all evil.
• the morning after, people celebrate by throwing color stained powders at each other and wear colorful outfits. Friends, enemies, man, woman, children, everyone participates in the color fights, which makes for quite the aesthetic. 
• People celebrate with certain intoxicants, one being a drink that originates from cannabis, which leads to quite the jolly time
• after the day is over, families and relatives get together and enjoy the night with each others presence. 
• Krishna
• The history of Holi can be dated back to Krishna. When Krishna was a baby, he had been poisoned by drinking the breast milk of a demon named Putana. After drinking this, his skin color had gone dark. Krishna wanted to be with the goddess Radha, but feared she would not like him due to his skin color. Krishna's mother got fed up, and told Radha to color Krishna's face with whatever color she pleased. She did so, and after that they had fallen in love. This is why people across the globe today celebrate Holi by throwing colored powder at each other. 

Holi

Rama Navani - 

• this holiday celebrates the birth of Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu 
• celebrated by people reading The Ramayana and telling the tales of Rama
• some celebrate by going to Temples, others celebrate in their homes
• some people celebrate by playing music with their families
• others celebrate by decorating small sculptures of Rama and then placing them in cradles
• it celebrates the establishment of the Dharma
• the good over evil

Rama decorated and placed in a cradle 

Ganesh Chaturthi - 

• celebrates the arrival of Hindu Deity Ganesh to earth
• clay idols are placed around homes, and in public places
• chanting of Hindu texts and rituals, lasts 10 days
• some people fast, while others indulge in sweets
• in Mumbai alone there are about 150,000 statues that appear in the ten day span of the holiday
• on the 10th day of the holiday, a massive clay statue of Ganesh is taken to a nearby body of water, either a river or a sea, and is placed in it. The statue starts to dissolve, and signifies Ganesh's return to Mount Kailash
• the holiday signifies new beginnings, and the overcoming of obstacles.

Ganesh